Old Habits Die Hard
by foreverchasingthedream
Summary: The more you push the further they go until you're left all alone. Carla's thoughts on those who have tried to love her and those she's pushed too far. Do old habits die hard?


Push them away.

It's easier that way. That way there's no one there to care, no one to be a failure to, no one left to let down.

If you push them all you can make them all go. Make them leave you. You're better off without them. You don't need them. Their care, their love, their compassion.

All it takes is a few words and they'll realise what a train wreck you are. How much of a disaster you are and within no time they'll be gone. They won't give you a second glance, you won't wake up to their messages wondering how you are or if you're free at 7 for a drink.

You'll be left all alone in a world of nothing but your demons for company.

What more do you need? What more than some tainted memories of what could have been. All the chances you had but the chances you threw away without a care for the consequences.

Old habits die hard. Maybe that's my excuse, an excuse for pushing and pushing, seeing how far you can go until they'll snap and walk away. Then you can add another to the tally of the ones you succeeding in losing.

You become a spring. You care, you get close, open your heart. You pull back everything until they see your soul laid bare, and then you realise your mistake. You spring out and your senses return. You return to what you know is best, even when in your heart you know it's wrong. You know that they care and love you but that doesn't stop you. Nothing can stop you. You make them go.

That's the way it began. My own mother didn't want me around, she was more concerned with the bottle and the line of people queuing to spend a spare moment in her bed. I never knew love or real honesty, I knew the honesty behind her demeaning words, behind the slap she would place on my cheek. The honesty was there, her hatred all so clear.

If you don't receive love you can never truly learn to give it. My mother pushed me away and placed the love she should have placed in me into the nearest bottle of cheap booze.

I wanted to love her. I tried with all of my heart to love her. I wanted to be like all the other kids, the ones who's mothers sent them off to school with a kiss and a packed lunch that was made with love. A mother who would come and tuck me up into bed, to place a soft, loving kiss on my cheek, a mother to chase away the monsters in my dreams. I wanted that and I tried to see the good in her. I wanted to see her like everybody else saw their mother. I wanted to be proud when she walked into the room, I wanted to say to my teacher "hey, that's my mam over there, she's the best" I wanted her to be proud after my parents evening. To hear that I was a credit to her, that she'd got an amazing daughter who was a credit to her.

But no. I couldn't love her. I couldn't as hard as I tried and she was the one person that should have cared. But she didn't, so if she couldn't why would anybody else? When I came to terms with the fact that she would never love me I did the right thing. I pushed her away. I left her and I didn't see her again. I didn't try because what use was she to me? What use is anyone to me?

I should be grateful for my mothers attitude towards me. At least she stuck around, not that she had much choice, unlike Johnny. He never cared, never tried to save me from my life. He could have come in, taken me away in the dead of night, no one needn't know, no one would have missed me. But he didn't. Why would he? I came from a house where the only liquid was tainted by booze, the air tainted by a hazy smoke, the people tainted by a life of self destruct. I must have been awful, I'm a disgrace to his seeming well respected, middle class family. From the beginning I pushed him away. It's my fault he scarpered, if I hadn't shown up he and mam could have carried on their seedy little affair but I got in the way and pushed them apart. Maybe that's why they both resented me so much. Why they felt the need to punish me from the beginning of my existence.

Ever since that day I've been in a downward spiral.

Paul. We were young, together and having fun. Never was there really a deep, true love. It was a functioning relationship based on business and money with fire and lust. It was all about the power, who could get one over on who. Eventually I got one over on him. I'd succeed in my mission. I pushed him into the arms of plenty of others. Women who were younger, prettier, better in bed than me. What do these things matter to me? They don't. They're so insignificant. I told him I hated him and then I lost him. Lost him over something so trivial, the first person who I'd let see just the beginnings of the real me.

Liam. I loved him more than life itself. That was my first experience of real love, to feel a love and be able to give it back with everything in me. It shouldn't have happened. I knew in my head that what I was doing was wrong. It was wrong on so many levels and yet I didn't stop it. I let my heart lead me down the wrong path. I wanted to leave with him that day but it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to deny him of a woman who could devote herself to him, to deny him of his baby. A baby that he didn't know of and a baby he never got to meet. If that night I hadn't pushed him away, if we'd left together we could have been happy. Maybe we would have lasted a lifetime, maybe we wouldn't have made it to the next morning together but he'd be alive and that would be enough. I pushed him away from what he'd finally admitted he wanted and with that I practically pushed him into the path of his demise.

Tony. He seemed so respectable and genuine on the outside. He was a well respected business man and a very smooth talker. He was what I needed. He was a chance to move on from Liam. There was nothing wrong with Tony. I could have learned to love him, or at least try to. But no. He stumbled across information I shouldn't have allowed him to. He knew about Liam. He knew too much. It sent him off the rails, drove him to depths I'd never seen anybody reach. My actions pushed him away from his senses and ultimately away from me. If he loved me he wouldn't have tried to burn me alive in my own factory, although his actions with Liam had caused more pain than any flame ever could. If I'd done the right thing maybe we'd still be living together making it work.

Frank. He returned me to normality or as close to normality as I'd ever been. We were engaged, house hunting and ready for our future together. A future that involved a wealthy business, a nice house and maybe our children. A future that as yet didn't reach the levels of love but it could be learnt over time. We were going to grow old together. That's the way it would be. Until he uncovered my secrets. My secret love. My Peter Barlow with his leather jacket. There was nothing to know, nothing to hide, nothing incriminating but he wouldn't have that. He wouldn't accept my words. The normality that I had learnt to live with was shattered. Shattered into a million tiny pieces that could never be mended. He broke me in a way that no person ever had or could. But if I hadn't had an affair of words, if I hadn't tried to push Peter into a relationship he didn't want, Frank wouldn't have found out anything, we'd have married and lived our lives, he wouldn't have responded like that. My pursuing of Peter was what pushed Frank into breaking my world.

Peter. A man who taught me to love again, who put me back together, who held me when I cried, who laughed with me. He left his wife for me. We weren't an affair. We were there for keeps. I'd had so many wrong relationships but this one felt right. We knew each other, we understood each other, we could read each other with a look and that was love. A real, true love. We shared everything, when he was down I was there to pick him up, when I was down he was there to pick me up. We worked in sync. He made me feel human again. He made me feel clean, worthy, accepted and loved. Something I hadn't felt in what seemed like a lifetime. Things were going well, maybe too well. Underworld was ours. Not mine. Ours. We were partners, in everything. We had a business, home, marriage and a baby on the way. Things I never thought I wanted but I did, so much. I thought that's what he wanted. That this was us, for the future. But yet again I went wrong. Maybe I was too much for him, too demanding or controlling. That's why he fell into the arms of another. I pushed too much onto him; work, marriage, baby. I was too much for him and in the end he couldn't take it. I pushed him away. Another one gone.

Michelle. She's been there for me since the beginning of time. She understood me like no one else had. She'd seen me at my weakest, in my darkest hours. I was so grateful for all she'd done for me. But I never told her that. I couldn't. I wanted to thank her, tell her how much she meant to me but there was something stopping me. Every person I'd ever allowed to be that close had gone eventually and so I'd just be thanking her for seeing things my way. Thanking her for leaving me alone because that's the way I need to be. Alone. What would she want with a friend like this anyway? A friend who pushes her away, a friend you won't accept her help. All the times she's been there for me, her arms wrapped tightly around me as I sob and yet I thank her by showering her in words that not even a dog would deserve. She's always come to help when I needed her and I've repaid her by throwing her out of my flat, underworld, my life. Eventually she'll see the light. She'll see what's best for her and leave me to continue my downward spiral. It's only a matter of time now until she'll go.

Nick. What an idiot. But now he's my idiot. My idiot with a fancy bistro, flash car and his familiar suits. He is everything that I want and everything that I need. When I'm with him the world makes sense, I don't grab for the bottle, I can just be me. A me who I've spent a lifetime suppressing. With him I don't have to hide anything, he's seen all of my flaws and yet he's still here. He's witnessed me on self destruct mode and yet he's still here. All of the pushing him away I tried to do failed and for once I'm glad it failed. I never want to have to push Nick away again. I tried that already, I tried and he stayed and that is just what I needed. I needed him to prove to me that and he did. I couldn't understand why a man like him would take a second glance at a woman with as much baggage as me. But it has only been through him that I've been able to accept that I'm not the monster I make myself out to be. I'm just a woman desperate to be held, loved and given the attention I've rarely deserved. But now, he is here and it's all I need. I am ready for my happily ever after. This is it, the man I love, who loves me back with no strings attached.

Maybe old habits do eventually die.


End file.
